


how could i forget

by Walkingfelony



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Musician!Scott, coffee shop AU, slightly fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 10:17:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2306129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walkingfelony/pseuds/Walkingfelony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia’s come to recognize the difference between thinking she sees him and knowing she sees him. When she thinks she sees him, she pauses for a moment and has to ask, “Is that him?” But when she does actually see him, she knows. She knows immediately.</p><p>The first time Lydia knows that she’s actually seeing Scott is when she’s sitting in a sports bar with Jordan and Allison Parrish, discussing the details of decorating their apartment. They’re in the middle of debating whether or not taupe is the right color for their curtains when Lydia catches a glimpse of one of the massive television screens.</p><p>And it’s definitely Scott. In a music video.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how could i forget

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegirlwhofangirled](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwhofangirled/gifts).



> beta'd by the wonderful Chelsea at the last minute because she's literally the best. 
> 
> all remaining mistakes are my own.

She thinks about him sometimes when she sees a tattoo, when she hears Joni Mitchell playing over the speakers in a store or in her car…when she smells coffee.

She thinks she sees him when she sees messy brown hair or someone who walks like he did. For a second she really does thinks it’s him. But the person never has his smile or his laugh or the confidence that he possessed that drew her to him.

It’s annoying how many times a week she thinks she sees him, especially since they were only together for one night. Even though it’s been five years since she walked out of the coffee shop and she hasn’t stepped foot in California since, he’s still there somewhere in the back of her mind.

Lydia’s come to recognize the difference between thinking she sees him and knowing she sees him. When she thinks she sees him, she pauses for a moment and has to ask, “Is that him?” But when she does actually see him, she knows. She knows immediately.

The first time Lydia knows that she’s actually seeing Scott is when she’s sitting in a sports bar with Jordan and Allison Parrish, discussing the details of decorating their apartment. They’re in the middle of debating whether or not taupe is the right color for their curtains when Lydia catches a glimpse of one of the massive television screens.

And it’s definitely Scott. In a music video.

Lydia’s not really surprised by how good he looks. There was never a doubt in her mind that age would be kind to him. But it appears age was too kind to him. Sure, he has the same brown eyes, same black hair, and the same grin that lights up his entire face even on the screen. He looks the same, but built broader. And there’s something else about him that she can’t quite put her finger on. But looking at him still makes her heart want to jump out of her chest.

She watches him sing in a coffee shop on the screen, causing an involuntary smile to creep to her lips. It feels like she’s back in the coffee shop—The Smirking Revenge—and he’s playing for her.

Then she’s on the screen. But it’s not her. Not really. It’s some girl who looks exactly like Lydia looked five years ago. The same crazy hair that came from being caught in the rain, the beat up converse Allison let her borrow as they walked into town, and the Harvard sweatshirt...it’s Lydia. Or as close to her as someone’s able to get.

And there’s a guy—younger than Scott and not as attractive, but still him all the same. She’s still smiling to herself as the video rolls on and it feels like the night she spent with him is happening all over again. She doesn’t even hear the words, she only sees her and Scott. And the coffee shop. And his paintings on the wall.

She gets to watch herself leave on the screen. She gets to see what he saw as she walked out of the shop the morning after. She sees the younger version of Scott looking at the door with a look on his face that almost breaks her heart. But the video cuts to Scott playing in the middle of the shop, and he smiles to himself and looks at the camera. It feels like he’s looking at her.

“Lydia,” Jordan’s voice causes her to drag her eyes from the screen to look over at her best friend’s husband as the video fades to black. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she says before turning her gaze to Allison. “I just saw Scott.”

“Scott?” Allison asks, raising an eyebrow as if she has no idea who Lydia’s talking about.

“Scott.” Lydia nods. “From Beacon Hills. And the coffee shop.”

A smile comes to Allison’s face as she starts looking around the room. “Is he here?” She turns back to face Lydia. “Does he still think Lydia isn't your real name?”

Lydia shakes her head. “I saw him on the television.”

“Doing what?”

“Is he a mass murderer?” Jordan asks. Allison and Lydia turn to look at him, both of them narrowing their eyes. He shrugs defensively. “Why was he on there then?”

“He was in a music video.”

Allison whips her head back toward Lydia so fast that Lydia’s surprised that she doesn’t get whiplash. “Scott McCall?”

“I don’t know his last name,” Lydia says. “You know that.”

“Oh my God,” Allison says with a huge grin on her face. “You’re the coffee shop girl.”

\--

After Allison fills Lydia in on what she needs to know, Lydia still googles Scott. She’s missed a lot about Scott since she left the coffee shop, and she’s mentally kicking herself for not following indie music.

The first article from a credible news source that she finds is from Rolling Stone. His picture wasn’t on the cover of the issue, but his name was. The article is nothing but praise for his lyrics and voice and his overall persona. They call him the next John Mayer.

But it’s the coffee shop that they focus on the most in the article since it’s the place where he was discovered, the place where he writes most of his songs, and the place that he claims gives him the most inspiration.

And then they focus on the “Coffee Shop Girl,” someone who—for some reason that Lydia doesn’t really understand—is one of the driving forces behind Scott’s success. Scott never seems to mention her name in interviews, claiming that the name she gave him was more than likely not her real one.

She’s almost finished with the article when her phone rings. Though she’s tempted to let it go to voicemail, she answers with a biting, “What?”

“Scott’s on tour,” is the first thing out of Allison’s mouth.

Lydia leans back in her chair. “Is he coming to New York?”

“Actually,” Allison starts, “he’s already been here.”

“Oh.”

Lydia looks back at her computer screen, discovering some strange disappointment bubbling up inside.

“His tour actually ends tomorrow.”

“Then why are you telling me this?”

Lydia can practically hear Allison’s smile through the phone. “It’s ending at Smirking Revenge. In Beacon Hills.”

“Do you really expect me to fly across the country just to see some guy that I knew for twelve hours?” Lydia asks, hovering over the new tab button as she tries to talk some reason to herself.

“Lydia,” she hears Jordan’s voice come through the phone. Of course Allison has her on speaker.

“What?”

"Did you tell this guy your name?"

"Yes."

"Did he believe you?"

Lydia sighs. The possibility that the girl who he credits as his muse not being Lydia creates an uncomfortable tightness in her throat. "I don't know."

"So there is always the possibility that you're not the coffee shop girl--" he starts.

"I guess so."

“--but you're probably her since the guy named his album after you,” he finishes, causing Lydia to still completely.

“What are you talking about?”

“His album is called Chasing the Cloud,” Jordan says and Lydia’s heart seizes up in her chest. “Didn’t you say he called you a ‘cloud’?”

\--

“I thought this was supposed to be a coffee shop,” Jordan says loudly as they walk through the door of Smirking Revenge. “This looks like a bar.”

“It’s a bar from seven to three and a coffee shop from six to seven,” Allison yells back as the three of them try to weave their way through the crowd.

They pause about five feet inside of the door, allowing Lydia to look around the place. It’s exactly the same as it was five years before. There’s Scott’s weird art on the walls and baked goods in the display case connected to the bar. The only real difference in the place is the number of people. Lydia thought that it was crowded the last time she came, but now…she can’t even see Scott on the stage. But she can hear his voice.

Allison grabs her hand, pulling Lydia toward the bar. Lydia reaches back to find Jordan’s hand to drag him with them.

There’s a squeal from Allison when they reach the bar and see Erica mixing a drink. Erica looks up at the noise, probably thinking that Allison is another squealing fan, but her face lights up when she sees her.

Handing the drink off to another bartender, Erica hops onto the bar and slides across before landing on their side, immediately going to hug Allison tightly.

As she watches the two women embrace each other, Lydia’s momentarily transported back to the night at the coffee shop where she watched Allison and Erica leave Smirking Revenge in a quest to find a trustworthy man who knew how to fix a broken down car five miles from town. She’s also standing in the spot where Erica told Scott to watch the place as they left, leaving him to look after the bar and Lydia.

“I can’t believe you actually came,” Erica says as they hold onto each other for a moment.

“Thank God for Facebook stalking, right?” Allison says, earning a laugh from Erica.

Erica then pulls away and looks over Allison’s shoulder at Lydia. “So your name really is Lydia.”

Lydia nods awkwardly, remembering how Erica, who was working the bar five years before, was apprehensive of her the entire time she was there.

But Erica smiles and removes a “reserved” sign from the bar, winking at Lydia.

Lydia stares at the seat, hearing Allison say something to Erica about Jordan that results in Lydia dropping his hand as Erica throws herself at him for a hug. But Lydia doesn’t really pay that much attention to what’s going on behind her.

Instead, she stares at her seat. The rest of the barstools have been updated to look even more vintage or hipster or whatever it is that they’re going for, but this one hasn’t changed since the night she sat on it for hours while talking with Scott.

As Lydia carefully takes her seat, Allison says something to the extent that she and Jordan are going to catch up with Erica before she winks and walks away.

Although there’s a lot of noise in the place, there’s also a sense of quiet. People hum along, and some sing. Mainly though, everyone’s focused on Scott.

And she can see him. He’s sitting there, strumming his guitar as if there’s no one else in the room with him. It’s haunting and beautiful and his voice is strong. It sends something through her, seeing him in person again and not on the computer screen. She smiles as she watches him look over at a table of girls and give them a smile that causes them to swoon.

“He’s really good, isn’t he?” she hears someone say next to her. Turning, Lydia sees a man a bit older than her sitting on the stool one over, casually sipping a beer.

“Yeah. He really is,” she says, looking back to where Scott’s playing.

He appears to be switching songs, the tempo faster than the previous one. She waits for a drum to kick in, but then she realizes that he’s alone on stage. No back up instruments or singers. Just him. Just like it used to be.

“Are you a big fan?” the man beside her asks. She shrugs in response. “Not much into the singer/songwriter genre?”

“My friends got me tickets for this,” she admits, glancing up at Scott.

Scott glances over to where she sits, and she’s tempted to wave, but she doesn’t think he sees her from the way that he immediately looks back at his guitar. Or maybe he doesn’t recognize her.

“I’m Derek, by the way.”

Lydia pauses at the name, remembering Scott talking about his foster brother. But the likelihood that she’s talking to his brother…probably not too great.

“Nice to meet you,” she says turning back to watch Scott.

“Do you not have a name?” Derek asks her.

She shakes her head. “The name I give out is apparently not my real one.”

Lydia looks over to see him raise an eyebrow. He looks at her like he might recognize her for a moment before he smiles slightly and says, “Nice to meet you.”

His smile broadens as looks past her for a moment a something behind her. She turns to look and sees a guy in an oversized plaid shirt approaching. The guy raises his eyebrows at Lydia as they make eye contact before turning his attention to Derek.

“Hey, man,” the guy says, making a sweeping gesture toward Lydia. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

“I would, but she doesn’t have a name,” Derek explains as the guy moves to deposit himself in the narrow space between Derek and Lydia, resting heavily on Derek’s shoulder.

“Well, you’re obviously a huge fan of Scotty’s, aren’t you?” the guy says leaning back slightly and reaching out to touch a piece of Lydia’s hair.

She draws back from him a bit, swatting at his hand. “What’re you talking about?”

“That girl in the coffee shop he always talks about. The one who doesn’t give out her real name. You’re imitating her like half of the girls in here.” He makes a sweeping gesture to the open part of the place before lightly touching a piece of her hair again. “Even dyed your hair.”

“Does he talk about that girl a lot?”

Derek nudges the guy. “She says she’s not a fan of his.”

The guy raises an eyebrow at her. “You’re not?”

“I’m not really into the independent scene,” she says, looking back to where Scott’s playing. “My tastes are pretty generic and Top 40. But I love Joni Mitchell.” As she turns back to face Derek and the guy, she informs them, "My name is Lydia, though." She pauses when they smile. “What?”

Then the music stops. Scott stops playing, stops everything. Lydia turns back to look at him. He looks out into the crowd and looks straight at her. An awkward silence falls over the crowd as Scott smiles slightly and grabs onto his microphone. His voice sounds the same as Lydia remembers when he speaks.

“I think I have an unexpected visitor tonight,” he says, his smile growing. “I’m not sure, your hair’s shorter than I remember. Not as crazy.” There’s a pause in his speaking and people are starting to look over to where his eyes are focused…on Lydia.

“I—you—” He’s flustered and smiling. Then he looks out to the crowd, his eyes darting back toward her. “You know, there are some people may think that that girl I always write about was just a chapter in my life.” Then he looks back to her. “But to me, you’re the book.”

“Always so poetic,” Lydia hears the guy in plaid mumble beside her as Scott looks back at his guitar.

“Here’s a fun fact about the coffee shop girl.” He plucks at his guitar, a familiar tune coming through the speaker. “Of the twelve hours I spent with her, we spent about an hour at the back of this place. On the bench in the alley. And she made me play her a song. Her favorite song, and now it’s mine.” He smiles at down at the ground. “I haven’t played it since. So forgive me if I’ve forgotten something.”

Then he looks up at her. “I’ve missed you, Cloud.”

Lydia doesn’t try to stop the smile that comes to her face as the words from “Case of You” fill the room.

\--

It’s thirty minutes before Scott finishes and Lydia notices that she has been getting a lot of death glares from a bunch of girls and guys. And that doesn’t include the nosy people who keep trying to talk to her.

Thankfully, Derek and the guy in plaid—Stiles is his name—are excellent at keeping people away since Derek manages to frighten people off with a scowl while Stiles attempts to talk them to death about whether or not Han Solo shot first.

Eventually the crazies go away and Lydia’s able to just listen to him.

But then he’s standing in front of her, music off and people surrounding them.

But really there’s just him. And there’s so much to say, so much Lydia’s keeping in.

“This had to be some kind of dream,” he says, reaching out his hand to touch her hair. He wraps it around his finger, stepping in so that he can lean forward and rest his head against hers. His voice lowers to a whisper as his eyes close. “Are you sure you’re real?”

She’s trying to bite back a smile as she lets her hand find the back of his neck, running her fingers over the fine hair at his nape. “Are you sure you are?”

He opens his eyes and his smile is back.

"I didn't think you'd remember me."

She takes in his smile for a moment as she lets herself smile shyly. "How could I forget?"

She only gets to look back in his eyes for a second because he immediately fits his mouth to hers and she’s breathing in his air. And there's a surge.

And this. This is the feeling that she’s been missing for five years. The feeling that came when she felt his soul touch hers for the first time five years before. She molds into him and as he wraps his arms around her, fitting perfectly against him.

He pulls away too soon, causing Lydia to chase his lips for a moment before letting their heads rest against each other’s again, his nose touching hers.

“So,” he says.

“So.”

And there’s his smile. She can feel it barely against her lips.

“Are you ever going to tell me your real name?”

She smiles against his smile.

**Author's Note:**

> [this is the song that scott sings at the end](http://dilfwolf.tumblr.com/post/68025101587/youre-in-my-blood-like-holy-wine-you-taste-so). it's originally by joni mitchell, but aaron tveit's cover slays my soul.
> 
> i'm also on the [tumblr](http://dilfwolf.tumblr.com).


End file.
